Marian Robertson was the daughter of the historian, Margaret Whiting Spilhaus. Marian left school at the age of sixteen to pursue an acting career at the London Theatre Studio, training under actors, Michel Saint Denis, John Gielgud, John Burrel and George Devine, receiving a thorough grounding in history and literature. However, returning to South Africa in 1940, she was advised that production and not acting was her métier. Thus besides participating in plays at the Little Theatre at the University of Cape Town, she started broadcasting regularly in radio plays.

The largest section of the collection is devoted to her radio journalism. This is also the most original contribution of the collection, because of its treatment of women’s everyday lives, both contemporary and historical, on the well known programme of the English Service of the SABC, Women’s World.

Her radio series, As We Were, that examined nineteenth century social life in South Africa, launched her into a prolific career of researching and writing. Although the original manuscript of As We Were was rejected, she was commissioned by Oxford University Press to write a history of the origins of the diamond industry in Kimberley in a book Diamond Fever, that was published in 1974. Several of her research projects were commissioned by the Anglo-American Corporation: Barclays Bank, Rhodes Fruit Farms and Die Posthuys; while she also received a private commission from S. A Breweries.

Beginning in 1979 she began a fruitful partnership as researcher and co-author of a number of books on Jewish subjects for businessman and philanthropist, patron of the Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research at the University of Cape Town, Mendel Kaplan. Kaplan also appointed her as chief researcher for the newly founded South African Jewish Museum that was opened on the campus of the Jewish Community Centre in Hatfield Street in Cape Town in the year 2000. It is thanks to her that the archival records relating to the establishment of this important institution have been preserved, as no records are to be found elsewhere.

Records of books that she researched and partially co-wrote for Mendel Kaplan, found in this collection include: the history of his family business, From Shtetl to Steelmaking (1979), Jewish Roots in the South African Economy (1986), Dear Son (1988), In Search of a Minyan (1996), City of David (1997) Seeking Tzedakah (2000), From Gates to Iron Ore (2004). Through her Kaplan connection, she was approached to advise, edit and on occasion co-write several other works for members of Cape Town’s Jewish community, the records of which are found in this collection. These include Rudy Frankel’s Tiger Tapestry (1988), Boris Sacks and Bella Silverman’s When Memories Grow Dim (1993), Ralph Gerber’s Recollections and Reflections (1995), Georgina Jaffee’s Joffee-Marks (2001), and Phyllis Jowell’s The Jews of Namaqualand (2004).

Other books found here are: Building for Permanence for the S. A. Permanent Building Society (1983), The People of J. C. I. for the Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Company (1988), and Rising Generations by Dennis Mills (1995).

Marion’s lifelong love of books and local history is reflected in her many organizational involvements, Friends of the S. A. Library, the P.E.N Club, Society of Bibliophiles, National Monuments Council, The Stellenbosch Museum, Captrust and the Soroptimists.